Sacred Mundane: The Blog

I read this in my quiet time this morning. Applicable, I believe. 

“Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking Him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession saying, ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame … To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in His laws … Oh my God, incline your ear and hear … for we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God.'” Daniel 9:3-19

 May our eyes be on the true King, and His Kingdom, this day and every day, as we humble ourselves and confess the sins of ourselves, our churches, our cities, our country.   And no matter what the outcome of this day,

“Let us be grateful for receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:28

 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart He will not despise (Ps. 51:17).

Let’s humble ourselves this day and commit together to pray for God to be worshipped and glorified in our lives, our homes, our churches, our cities, our country. Thanks for reading.

Revisiting this as we drive away from Arizona today. Oh how God has healed and restored! Praise Him–I pray these words can be balm to your soul…

~

I always thought the worst thing was not getting chosen. Being overlooked, left out, not being picked for the team or the party or the date.

Do you remember that happening and how bad it felt? Realizing that someonepurposefully didn’t choose you, that in someone’s mind they would be better off without you even being there. I remember getting stung a couple times and rubbing the spot for quite awhile.

But it turns out there’s something much worse: Getting chosen and then it becoming glaringly obvious that you were not as expected. That you are a disappointment. That perhaps you’re kept because of mercy, pity, or dutiful obligation, but the unspoken truth is that if the whole thing was done over, they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. You’d be out.

Perhaps you were chosen for the team but reality is you’ve never seen a minute in a game. Or, like poor Skeeter from The Help, you’re set up on a date and upon arrival Mr. Wonderful’s face is painfully clear: You’re not quite what he’d hoped for.

That is, perhaps you were chosen, but had they really known you you’d never have been chosen after all. 

Yup, this takes the cake.

This goes far beyond the surface scratch of being merely overlooked. One can easily explain that away. Perhaps they don’t know your hidden talent, or you were having a bad day, or maybe your beauty isn’t outward but if they knew your amazing personality things would be different. Being initially un-chosen is rejection at arm’s length. Not big deal.

But the second kind is another beast altogether. That is, rejection at our core. That is, rejectedfor who we really are. After we’ve been known. After we’ve been proven. After we’d washed off our makeup and slipped off our clothes, so to speak. Rejection that whispers, “Had I known, I never would have chosen …”

Do we wonder why divorce is so diabolical? 

To be known and then rejected is eternally worse than never being chosen in the first place.

Why the dark thoughts, you ask?

This darkness (That yes, I have felt in my brief 32 years), this sting, this ache that strips us bare and leaves us raw and oozing pain, it helps us see the glory of the gospel.

The ravaging love that revolutionizes our souls. 

Yes, it arrests our hearts to realize that “In Him, we were also chosen” (Eph. 1:11). We ARE chosen, picked, singled out, by the love of God in Christ. But this! But this is what should bring us to our knees in thanks and stand us on our feet in confidence:

“For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them…” Rom. 8:29

Known and chosen. Chosen and known. We have been chosen by God even though He knew everything we would ever do.  He knew what was under the clothes, the makeup, the masks. He knew the blunders we’d make and the limits we have.

He knows that really, we’re not that put together. 

He says, “I have known, and I have chosen.”

I don’t know who this is for, but some sister needs to know it today: You are not a disappointment to God. He has never regretted his choice in you. He has never thought, “Had I known…”

You were already known, and chosen.

So you can be free to slip down those layers we clutch fearfully in front, and be bare before Him. He already knows and loves it all. You’re not a disappointment after all. 

Oh amazing grace! {Thanks for reading and have a blessed weekend.}

“Bob who?” 

When Bob Goff visited a local church recently, and facebook exploded with excitement over his appearance, I was a little embarrassed that I had no idea who he was.

So I figured I’d better get with the times and read his book. One of the first stories in it was of him making a phone call to Washington DC and leaving his name for a return call. The secretary replied, “Bob who?” I had to laugh. I’m glad I wasn’t the only person on earth who didn’t know who this dude was.

Love Does, now a NY Times Bestseller, is a humorous collection of stories from Goff’s life, stories that highlight and celebrate engaging life, taking risk, and loving people with reckless, enthusiastic, “whimsy” love. It’s a quick read, but very fun, as his stories leave you shaking your head wondering if this guy is for real. He is. It was a great for a poolside read on our vacation. It was also a great book to shake me out of my stupor a little bit and remind me to lighten up, risk, laugh, and enjoy living out God’s love and compassion for people instead of stressing about whether or not I’m doing it right. 

The great nuggets gleaned from Goff’s stories included:

• Saying yes to opportunities rather than fretting and fussing in indecision
• Embracing and engaging each day rather than looking ahead for the “next thing”
• Dreaming big and attempting ridiculously audacious things for God’s glory rather than just always opting for the safe option
• Believing God for what I believe He wants me to do rather than giving up
• Embracing failure as a beautiful, acceptable, and even beneficial part of life rather than fearing it and avoiding it at all cost
• Just loving people NOW rather than sitting around creating mission statements and plans for doing great things

My only other frustration with the book was that all the examples and stories felt so far removed from my life. That’s not a criticism–the author is simply writing from his own life experience and I’m sure the distance I feel is my own fault, my own limited perception of what I’m “able” to do. But stories of a man, with plenty of money, traveling around the world and letting people use his sailing boat and vacation home on the water, made me feel even more limited in my being a woman, a stay-at-home mom with two little kids who need me all the time, living on 1/3 of a normal salary (not complaining, these are choices we’ve made!). I know that I can still embrace the nuggets listed above, but as I read the stories I admit I struggled with feeling like the life described was just so far removed from my own. Maybe we’ve all struggled with that as we look up to and admire people in different life-circumstances than our own.

But please don’t get me wrong, great book!  And it made me think–wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a book about embracing life, giving extravagantly, and living out God’s crazy-love mission on this earth as a woman, even as a stay-at-home-mom? What if there was a book about embracing this amazing sacred existence in the midst of the mundane. Maybe Goff’s wife, Sweet Maria, will write one.

Or maybe I will. Hey, why not?

I’m learning how to dream. 🙂

Thanks so much to Bob Goff for writing this great book and shaking me up a little. I hope this didn’t come off too critical, as it was a great read and I’m thankful for it. And I’m glad I finally know who he is now! Thanks to all of you, for reading.